I will not die an unlived life

A dear friend and student of mine sadly passed away recently. I had so much love and respect for this special lady and feel so much for the loved ones she has left behind.

When she first found out that she had 3 brain tumours, she was of course upset but also at the same time very realistic, pragmatic and accepting, we could all learn so much from her attitude. I would visit her house every week armed with bolsters, sandbags and blankets and we would meditate, practice restorative yoga or sometimes just have a good natter and put the world to right and we would sometimes laugh out loud, in fact she never stopped laughing in all the time she was ill.

I remember her saying after our first meditation session, ‘it is what it is, I can’t change it, but I can stay present and live my life for right now’.
She did just that, after her first lot of chemo was finished, she made it her mission to come on a retreat with me to Champneys, she took her little girl to Lapland with her husband that same year, and also did many more meaningful things (too many to mention here), that weren’t just about her. She went out of her way to inspire others in the same situation, she carried on living her life and making very special memories with her young daughter, in fact once her daughter did yoga with us too.

She eventually became bored with being at home, (she was a presenter for a local radio station) so she went back to work and tried to live her life with as much normality as possible.

Some of you will remember her from my Granary workshop sessions or my Tuesday morning therapeutic sessions. She loved talking about life and philosophy.

Her Facebook wall has been flooded with hundreds of beautiful, inspirational comments since she’s passed, I have had tears streaming down my face reading them, but I have also weirdly been smiling at all of the lovely stories and memories. 

We don’t know when our time is up people, stay present, live your life and make every second of it meaningful and worthwhile.

B xx

I will not die an unlived life
I will not live in fear
of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days,
To allow my living to open me,
To make me less afraid,
more accessible,
To loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance;
To live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom
And that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.

Dawna Markova